Access to external finance is a key challenge for the creation, survival and growth of SMEs. This article delves into the “weak funding” handicap of rural small firms (SEs): the access to bank financing and the substitutive role of trade credit for entrepreneurs in rural areas when they...

This paper investigates whether market power affects trade credit decisions. We explore several financial crises in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the US that work as exogenous shocks to the supply of short and long term financing for nonfinancial firms. We find that firms with high market power...

In most countries, suppliers of intermediate goods and services are also the main providers of short-term financing to firms. This paper studies the macroeconomic implications of these financial links. In our model, trade credit is the outcome of a long-term contract between firms linked in the...

This paper studies the effect of the 2008 financial crisis on trade credit and bank credit for a sample of 1982 firms in thirteen countries in Western Europe. We find that net trade credit decreases gradually for the whole period. On the other hand bank credit stays stable for the first 2 years...

This paper studies the role of the credit crunch in the severe contraction of economic activity during the 2008-09 global financial crisis, using firm-level data from six emerging Asian economies. After controlling for the effect of falling demand, we find that sales declined by less for firms...

Using unique daily data of payment defaults on suppliers in France, we show how the trade credit channel amplified the demand shock that firms met during the COVID-19 crisis. That channel dramatically increased short-term liquidity needs during the first months of the pandemic. A one standard...

Using unique daily data on payment defaults to suppliers in France, we show how the trade credit channel amplified the Covid-19 shock, during the first months of the pandemic. It dramatically increased short-term liquidity needs in the most impacted downstream sectors: a one standard deviation...

On May 11-12, 2011, SUERF, the Belgian Financial Forum, the Brussels Finance Institute and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) jointly organised the 29th SUERF Colloquium New paradigms in money and finance? The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the...

This paper proposes a new regulatory approach that implements capital requirements contingent on managerial compensation. We argue that excessive risk taking in the financial sector originates from the shareholder moral hazard created by government guarantees rather than from corporate...

This paper studies how liquidity shocks that affect financial intermediaries are propagated to the real economy. Loans made to firms by financial intermediaries reflect their current and future anticipated borrowing constraints. As a result firms face a higher borrowing costs not only when their...